THIS is with reference to the report ‘Tragedy befalls Murree as 22 die trapped in snowfall’ (Jan 9). It said that the army and the district administration launched a massive rescue operation in and around Murree after 22 people, including women and children, were found dead in their vehicles trapped in heavy snowfall.

A stitch in time saves nine is an old English proverb, but perhaps it is a completely alien concept for the administration. It also goes to prove that the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Murree administration, the police and security agencies are mere paper tigers unable to respond to emergencies in time. Multimedia presentations post-disaster is not what they have been established to do.

The whole situation has posed some relevant and important questions. When Murree has a parking capacity of nearly 3,500 vehicles, why were 80,000 vehicles allowed to reach the area? What arrangements had been made after the meteorological department’s warning on Jan 5 about the heavy snowfall?

The need for a centralised emergency and rescue service number has been emphasised repeatedly, but the idea is yet to materialise for some reasons known only to the authorities. People stuck in Murree had been sending messages repeatedly for more than 12 hours, but no help reached them. Is there no emergency response mechanism that has the facility of helicopters at its disposal? Even if they could not evacuate everyone overnight, they could have dropped supplies. Just the idea that someone somewhere is trying to do something for them would have given hope and energy to the victims. They died because they just gave up after losing all hope.

Launching ‘massive rescue operations’ after the loss of 22 lives is indicative of inefficiency that was made worse by what was a typical bureaucratic attitude.

Khayyam Durrani
Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2022